certain subjects are useless to certain people, it’s a matter of opinion, the fact is everyone will become someone different and the job they choose will use different skills, and well anything that doesn’t contribute to those skills seems useless.
For me, I want to become an engineer, so for me History is useless, and most of English is useless (grammar, spelling and paper writing are about the only things that matter for me)
A lot of the stuff you learn in school isn’t taught so that you can use it later in life, but rather to help you develop critical thinking skills to be able to work through problems.
this is true, but I still feel that they can do that in a more effective less time consuming way, with less hw, much less hw.
I think you need some basic knowledge in life.
You don’t see the point of English? Well, communication is the basis of any civilization, and it’s important to know how to nuance your ideas.
History is also important, you need to understand the best how the world you live in was built. What errors were made, what could have been done to avoid some sad events, why some policyes were not as flawless as they seem on the paper.
Actually, I think it’s essential if you want to freely think by yourself. And of course, never consider what you were taught as 100% accurate.
I agree that SOME basic knowledge is needed, but there’s a lot in the curriculum that’s useless to me.
Not sure if “useless knowledge” even exists 
If it does, you can only say that in your deathbed.
Seems to me most people have to learn how to do the math to write a program to do it. But then what do I know…
useless in the sense that my time would’ve been better spent learning other things
Maybe then.
I don’t know, I am curious about everything.
But an education system cannot provide a school program for every individual
sure they can, you do the basics for everyone, then they focus on the classes more oriented towards their fields.
That’s what you do in college.
You are even offered the choice to start specializing in high school.
This is how I’ve understood it: Basics must be strong enough to allow people who are not mature enough or sure about what they want to do later to make mistakes.
You are lucky to know what you want to do. I’m 22 and I still don’t.
Thank goodness, tuition fees in university in France is pretty cheap (550 USD/year without social scholars. Social scholars are easily given and bring tuition fees down to 7 USD), we rarely have to make loans. Even if I study English and American languages, cultures, literatures and civilizations now. I know I have the skills to go study medicine, physics, economics or law.
What if, since 6th grade you had started specializing in biology, and then, one morning, you’re 17 and you realize you’ve matured, you don’t like the same things and now what you want to study is drama?
It’s more common that you’d think 
Correct. Once you learn how it works, you shouldn’t have to sit and do it by hand. Look up a TED talk on this by Conrad Wolfram. It’s very intriguing.
I finished finals last Wednesday. Block schedule means that every semester, we go through an entire course. They then find that they are able to somehow add an additional 2 classes per year.
One would think so but I wrote a program on my calculator in 7th grade (Wow, that was so long ago now) to solve some stuff as I was learning it.
That’s the best post you’ve had so far lol BUT if you are someone like me who knows and has their heart set, I should have the option to cut down on the stuff I don’t really need.
I really doubt the average person could do that.
Ti-basic is a terrible mess, but it is fairly simple to program with because of its limited number of built in functions. The syntax directly follows the rest of the calculator’s operating system.
What kids underestimate is how important being well-rounded and developing broad intellectual abilities really is. Specializing too much or too early is usually to a person’s detriment.
At your age you have no comprehension of what you will need as life goes on.
I still don’t.
at my school we are required to have TI-84 or TI-83 calculators now lucky me I have a TI-84 so on rainy school days I put games on my calculator. I’m an example of what teachers don’t want to see on your calculator. But none the less it’s worth it after the math midterm.
maybe so, but gosh I’d drop my english and history classes anyday to go to my engineering room and finish where I left off with the good old CNC lathe and my yoyo project from last year.
Just saying, but knowing how to make a yoyo isn’t exactly a high paying job. And I wouldn’t exactly call that engineering, working with lathes is a bit more manufacturing oriented. If you’re saying you prefer engineering over English and History, then you haven’t gone through Truss Analysis yet.
